Current location in this text. Enter a Perseus citation to go to another section or work. Full search
options are on the right side and top of the page.

[418]
the lowest resorts and hovels of the district; but he did not think that he and the other owners of that property ought to be required to bear so heavy a burden.
I said to the gentleman that there were thousands of people, refugees and freedmen, in the same condition as those on his valuable property, and I could not then see how to relieve him; that I was charged in an opposition press with “feeding people in idleness,” and I must not add to our pauper list.
Yet I answered him, however, that I knew I ought to make an effort to help him.

At last, I proposed, as I should have done in the field, to go to the place where the trouble was pressing.
We took a carriage and rode to the encumbered lots and rough structures.
We called out all the men that we found in the buildings.
Many of them did not lack intelligence.
At first, I explained the situation as I understood it, telling the people who we were.
When I said: “You cannot expect to stay here on other people's property without paying rent,” they very pertinently asked: “Where shall we go, and what shall we dot”

I answered them by asking another question: “What would make you self-supporting!”
Several replied: “Land I give us land!”
They seemed to realize that they could not much longer stay there in the heart of the capital on that costly ground.
Yet some were saucy and some stupid; but the greater number appeared anxious somehow to earn their way. At last, I said: “Now, if I could manage to secure you a homestead, say an acre of land apiece near the city, might I rely upon it that you would work, earn money, and repay my outlay?”
Some of them fully understood me and earnestly promised to do so. Others hung down their heads and said nothing.
The above is a detailed

An XML version of this text is available for download,
with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted
changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.